A Depressing "Aha" Moment

Your Demon has been preoccupied, ever since she began this old-fashioned broadside of a blog, with a single question:

What the hell is wrong with this country that things have gone so horribly awry in terms not only of civil discourse in politix between Americans themselves (the bitter carping & shout-fests of competing soundbytes & talking points said "debate" has become), but worse, how the extreme hard right has so successfully skewed the national conversation such that they've managed to invade a sovereign country, sell us on the necessity of same with no more honesty nor compunction than a used car salesman peddling a beater with a turned-back odometer, & have generally succeeded in turning a tempest in a teapot into a "Global War on Terror" ~ and here's the clincher, the cherry on top ~the "normalization" of lying, spying, extraordinary rendition & torture as the ordinary stuff of daily political life.

Are we outraged yet? (Apparently not.)

Once upon a time long ago, I was visiting Western Germany, & one of my hosts asked me (an Irishwoman, & in all sincerity), "What is the difference between your liberals & your conservatives in America?" I had to admit then, "Not much," with a laugh, but that was some time ago, & I no longer think it's a wryly amusing matter.

The question was prescient.

In fact, I now think that our complacence as liberals & our willingness to tolerate the pernicious effect of corporate money in politix as well as our inattention to other matters such as how easy it is otherwise to jerry-rig voting machines, & to jerrymander voting districts, has come back to bite our asses, big time.

Worse, & I hate to even think it, much less say it out loud ~ our high level of tolerance & blind adherence to 18th Century Enlightenment principles, based on calm, rational discussion & belief that if we provide a "marketplace of ideas" and conduct ourselves appropriately, "the truth will out," and a sort of rational sanity will prevail.

That was before the Neocons snuck up on us, consolidating their power slowly, & now, in the full flower of the Bush years, our own liberal brand of tolerance has allowed the rabid neo-cons to storm us like the radical bunch of Berserkers they are, hell bent on undermining every legal underpinning of democracy here at home and wreaking untold havoc on the rest of the world.

The problem is that the "marketplace of ideas" paradigm only functions well where accurate information is shared in transparent fashion. We're fed only propaganda, shallow jingoism, lies, distortions & cover-ups, & it's getting mighty hard to defend our core principles in the face of all that noise.

So, where now, intrepid fellow liberals?